114 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



possibly came through Palestine and Syria via 

 Egypt, but were probably Arabs, who overran all 

 those countries, as we know. Besides, the state- 

 ment in the previous letter rather supports ' Bruni's ' 

 view. Dr. Barth explains the connection between 

 the Berbers and the Arabs, and states that the 

 Berbers were a Semitic race, now more or less 

 modified in many districts by intermarriage with the 

 Africans. 



After lengthy dissertations on various beauties and 

 qualities of the pure horse, General Daumas tells us 

 that a good horse in the desert ought to accomplish 

 for five or six days, one after the other, distances of 

 twenty-five or thirty leagues, and that after a couple 

 of days' rest, if fed well, he will be quite fresh 

 enough to repeat the feat ; and although he says that 

 the distances to be traversed in the Sahara are not 

 always of such great length, yet at the same time it 

 is no very rare occurrence to hear of horses doing 

 fifty or sixty leagues in four-and-twenty hours, and 

 he mentions instances which, he says, will appear 

 incredible, and if witnesses were wanted to confirm 

 the truth of the story, the horses still are alive. 



One of a thousand instances — one which was told 

 him by a Zy-ben-Zyan, a man of the tribe of Arbaa 

 — he gives in the relator's words, of which the sub- 

 stance follows : 



The Arbaa had some terrible quarrels with the 

 Turks, and agreed to win over by presents of money 

 the Pasha's suite, and to send to himself not merely 



